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HandWiki. Agency. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/28455 (accessed on 22 September 2026).
HandWiki. Agency. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/28455. Accessed September 22, 2026.
HandWiki. "Agency" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/28455 (accessed September 22, 2026).
HandWiki. (2022, October 08). Agency. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/28455
HandWiki. "Agency." Encyclopedia. Web. 08 October, 2022.
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Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. It is independent of the moral dimension, which is called moral agency. In sociology, an agent is an individual engaging with the social structure. Notably, though, the primacy of social structure vs. individual capacity with regard to persons' actions is debated within sociology. This debate concerns, at least partly, the level of reflexivity an agent may possess. Agency may either be classified as unconscious, involuntary behavior, or purposeful, goal directed activity (intentional action). An agent typically has some sort of immediate awareness of their physical activity and the goals that the activity is aimed at realizing. In ‘goal directed action’ an agent implements a kind of direct control or guidance over their own behavior.
social structure
physical activity
direct control
References
- Ross, S. A. (1973). "The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal's Problem". The American Economic Review 63 (2): 134–139.
- Gergely, György; Nádasdy, Zoltán; Csibra, Gergely; Bíró, Szilvia (1995). "Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age". Cognition 56 (2): 165–193. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(95)00661-h. ISSN 0010-0277. PMID 7554793. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2F0010-0277%2895%2900661-h
- Gergely, György; Csibra, Gergely (2003). "Teleological reasoning in infancy: the naı̈ve theory of rational action". Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7 (7): 287–292. doi:10.1016/s1364-6613(03)00128-1. ISSN 1364-6613. PMID 12860186. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fs1364-6613%2803%2900128-1
- Bandura, A. (1999). "Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective". Asian Journal of Social Psychology 2: 21–41. doi:10.1111/1467-839X.00024. PMID 11148297. https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Bandura/Bandura1999AJSP.pdf. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
- Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ Bormann, 1996
- Guo, K.J., Yolles, M., Fink, G., Iles, P., 2016, The Changing Organisation: Agency Theory in a Cross-cultural Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Otto, Ilona M. (January 2020). "Human Agency in the Anthropocene". Ecological Economics 167: 106463. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106463. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.ecolecon.2019.106463
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